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| My mini-me. |
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| Guinea Pig Snuggle Time |
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| Post bath picture time |
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| Andrew's curls are amazing |
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| Enjoying time at the mall and away from the cold. |
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| This girl makes me smile. |
If you were to ask about my life, you'd discover that I have 3 kids between the ages of 5 and 9, work full-time, attend graduate school full-time, foster dogs, and train for long distance races. I am sure your first thought would be, wow you are busy! And perhaps your second thought would be, why don't I get my life together? Or it might even be, how do you do it all (successfully)?
See, the difficulty in sharing pieces of your life with others is that it automatically leads to comparisons. Or judgment. Often both. The very question "how do you do it all" is almost an accusation, like "why are you doing all this?" or "are you trying to show off?" Sometimes I feel like I have to excuse my schedule and show that I am superwoman (I'm not). (To be fair, I have thought and even asked that question of many women in my life especially when my kids were little and it felt like everything in my life was unmanageable. I recognize that I asked (or thought) the question because I felt guilty that I wasn't doing more which.often led to feelings of judgement for that person and quite frankly led to internal accusations of how that person is probably not doing something. I guess that's why when I'm on the receiving end now I kinda know what is really being asked.)
I never imagined my life as it now stands. I imagined a husband and kids but working full-time? Going to graduate school? Fostering dogs?!?! These are things I found I enjoyed after I married and had kids. They were things that I discovered because I was unsatisfied with what I was doing currently or I found they balanced out an otherwise want-based life.
But if you were to zoom in our daily living, you would notice I don't do everything successfully. In fact, close to the inverse. I intentionally let many things slide: laundry, a clean bathroom, consistent bed times and an empty kitchen sink. Our meals aren't organic and my kids eat sugary cereals. Heck, I drink too much caffeine, eat too many salty and sweet things, and feel/act irritated with the constant squabbles between my kids. I don't know what's under my bed and I'm afraid to look under the beds of my kids.
But you would also notice strict schedules and constant organization. The family calendar is full but not impossible. The kids each have sports they play or other interests they follow. Each season they are required to choose a sport to participate in to ensure adequate physical activity and we - meaning Ben and I together - make it happen.
The key to how I, we, "do it all" is we work together and keep ourselves organized. (I mean I mostly keep things organized but everyone else helps or does execute it, like Ben does all the cooking and the kids have daily chores). I plan a two-week menu in advance with input from the family and then grocery shop around that. I put every event on the calendar that is important - this includes family outings. I know I won't remember the Big Idea I had last week for a family adventure or date night and I definitely will not remember the various appointments, games, and other time squeezing events so I make sure to add them to the calendar. This calendar is then shared between Ben, myself, and the kids. Between work, school, and sports our time is tightly strung. But I look at it like I would a mathematical problem (mostly Calculus) in that, I have a time curve and must maximize each sub-interval of time to get the most out of it.
The larger point is there isn't such a thing as doing it all in my life. I have to choose some things over others when needed - like writing a blog post over sleeping, or running as opposed to taking a nap or working on homework instead of enjoying a good book. Sometimes I daydream of having a nanny or an assistant or someone else to take off the mother load but, honestly, then what I'm doing wouldn't feel real because the daily struggle to get everything done is kind of the point of right now. An 8-9 hour work day provides food, shelter, clothes, and spending money; graduate school provides future employment doing what I love and continuous opportunities to learn and grow mentally; running gives me an outlet to do something without thinking about everything else; spending time with my family provides joy (and frustration and often in equal parts) and answers to what the future holds. In all of it there is an infinite amount of busywork (why does dust build up everywhere??) but also so much satisfaction. Just knowing that the family made it through another busy week reminds me that we are succeeding and thriving.
One final note. Whatever you are doing in your life is important and also equally time consuming: whether it's keeping up with the most current television shows (which requires major dedication as I still haven't finished the first season of This Is Us); doing the daily grind of putting kids to bed (which seems to take an hour longer every night); answering the unfortunate daily question of what do I feed the kids today?; or trying to fit in exercise when it's the last thing you want to do after a long day at work/school/home. So please don't look at others who might be doing "more" with envy or disgust or whatever. They probably want a nap just as much as you do.
